February 12, 2008

"She has also constructed a scrotum using two wood balls linked by a rubber band (vas deferens) and suspended in an extra-large condom filled with oil and peanut butter."

It's not another art show. This is a serious medical project: Designing anatomical models to train doctors to get over their prudishness so they can examine body parts properly:

[Dr. Carla Pugh] often buys penises at adult “novelty” shops, though they are all erect and circumcised, and sometimes welds on rubber tubing used for synthetic intestines when a foreskin is needed....

“We need permission to fail in a safe environment,” [Dr. Richard M. Satava] said. “Aviation has used simulators since 1955 that are now almost indistinguishable from flying real airplanes and have achieved a remarkable safety record. It’s time that health care followed.”

The models need not be particularly high-tech. “A very sophisticated simulator would be too much for a student,” he said. “For simple tasks like a pelvic exam, a simple simulator like Carla’s is actually preferable. You don’t teach a teenager to drive in a million-dollar Ferrari.”

They have to hide whatever squeamishness they may feel. The problem manifests itself in the quality of the examination.

I have certainly noticed a difference between a female and a male gynecologist. Males seem to be unnecessarily rough out of a need to demonstrate that it's purely professional. That's how I interpret it anyway.

Luckily a year of internship and 3 years of residency cure it (when a patient has a fecal impaction at 3:00 am the nurses will invite the resident on call to get involved, so as to cure the squeamishness problem and because many residents are arrogant little SOBs).

As my wife (an RN) says about the male parts "after you see the first thousand or so it gets kinda routine."

Ann Althouse: I have certainly noticed a difference between a female and a male gynecologist. Males seem to be unnecessarily rough out of a need to demonstrate that it's purely professional. That's how I interpret it anyway.

I've noticed the same phenomenon among barbers, back when I had enough hair to justify visiting one.

Males seem to be unnecessarily rough out of a need to demonstrate that it's purely professional.

True, but only partly. Older women do not seem to mind having males doctors, but younger women request female MDs more and more.

From my side, I don't care. Women doctors and PAs that I work with try to avoid the pelvic exam (and female patients in general) because of the demand and increased time needed to see these patients. Hence there are shortages and longer waits to see a female provider.

Men are happy to abdicate this exam because among younger women there is always the risk you will be accused of assault ...even if you have an assistant with you.

Anyway, this is what happens when you treat men as unnecessary. Why learn this if it only gets you in trouble? Let women do all the exams. They are the Puritans here, by the way, not the guys.

I had a woman doctor do my first rectal in '85. I thought she was spacey, but she actually saved my life. She sent me to a dermatologist because I had so many moles, so I knew the warning signs when I got melanoma six years later.

Ann Althouse: I have certainly noticed a difference between a female and a male gynecologist. Males seem to be unnecessarily rough out of a need to demonstrate that it's purely professional. That's how I interpret it anyway.

Either that, or they don't quite understand how delicate that area is. I imagine that, after seeing the first few hundred babies delivered, they would be under the impression that women are made out of titanium.